Secretary of Air Force Heather Wilson announced late this week about her decision to step down from current position and take charge of her new role as president of Texas University located in El Paso. In her letter she announced that after receiving a favorable vote from Regents she will resign from current position from May 31, 2019, onwards of this year which will allow for smooth transitioning from her role. She said that her decision to move into field of academics was to emphasize on higher education in America that needs strong leaders to steer its young population into next century.
She expressed happiness and satisfaction in her role and the progress that has made in speeding up acquisition schedules and removal of superfluous regulations. She also spoke about the strides made by the air-force in space technology and its ability to dominate the region with new technology. News of her resignation has sent shockwaves in Pentagon as clearly few people had knowledge of her departure. It appears that even her own staff was unaware of her decision and several of them including the entire Air Force department were shocked by the news.
There were rumors that Ms. Wilson was being considered for the post of Secretary of Defense and she will be leaving the department at a time when it is trying to get approval of Congress to set up a Space Force as a sixth division of US Military which will function under Air Force. Before the idea for setting up this force was proposed by President Trump it had been opposed by Ms. Wilson. After it was proposed by Mr. Patrick Shanahan she gave it her full support but when she put forth the cost estimate of setting up the force along with US Space Command at $13 billion it was rejected outright by Mr. Shanahan.